Ilic Receives Honorary Chair at Prestigious TU Delft University in The Netherlands

ECE/EPP Professor Marija Ilic has received an honorary academic chair from TU Delft University in The Netherlands for her efforts in modernizing the world's electricity infrastructures.

Ilic was named chair of Control Of Future Electricity Network Operations in the Department of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft. The award also includes a courtesy appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in the TU Delft Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Computer Science.

Her appointment, which began Nov. 1 and runs through 2013, is the first chair of its kind dedicated directly to future electricity infrastructures.

"This is an outstanding honor and indicative of Marija's leadership role in helping to define the world's energy future," said Pradeep K. Khosla, the Dowd University Professor and dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.

"I am proud to be recognized by peers in this growing field of energy and electricity research. I see it as a tremendous opportunity to reach across traditional disciplines and organizational boundaries and work toward shaping new generation leaders. Both Carnegie Mellon and TU Delft offer a unique environment for multi-disciplinary approaches to meeting our energy goals," said Ilic, who is scheduled to give an inaugural lecture at Delft in late December.

Ed Schlesinger, head of Carnegie Mellon's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, praised Ilic for her leading-edge research in modernizing a variety of electric energy systems.

"Our department currently offers unique courses essential for future concepts in electric energy systems by identifying clear links across physical systems and embedded intelligence necessary to make these systems secure, reliable and efficient. Professor Ilic has been instrumental in developing these new courses," Schlesinger said.

Margot Weijnen, scientific director of the Delft Research Center for Next Generation Infrastructures, also praised Ilic's work on promoting innovations through distributed architectures. "We trust her to strengthen our research on managing interdependency between IT and power infrastructures."

For more than a decade, Carnegie Mellon's Department of Engineering and Public Policy has done extensive collaborative research involving critical infrastructures with Delft researchers.

"We feel that this dual appointment at both universities is a wonderful opportunity to establish increased research synergies and boost our exchange of outstanding Ph.D. students," said M. Granger Morgan, head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Engineering and Public Policy and a veteran research collaborator of multidisciplinary research with Delft's Weijnen.

Ilic is developing intricate software-based tools to make the electric power grid more economical to operate and safer to use.

Source: Carnegie Mellon News

ECE/EPP Professor Marija Ilic has been named chair of Control Of Future Electricity Network Operations in the Department of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft.